ich
is alone the legal tender, before the check, which limits the
circulation of paper, would operate. If the seignorage on gold coin were
5 per cent., for instance, the currency, by an abundant issue of
bank-notes, might be really depreciated 5 per cent. before it would be
the interest of the holders to demand coin for the purpose of melting it
into bullion; a depreciation to which we should never be exposed, if
either there was no seignorage on the gold coin; or, if a seignorage
were allowed, the holders of bank-notes might demand bullion, and not
coin, in exchange for them, at the mint price of 3_l._ 17_s._ 10-1/2_d._
Unless then the bank should be obliged to pay their notes in bullion or
coin, at the will of the holder, the late law which allows a seignorage
of 6 per cent., or four pence per oz., on the silver coin, but which
directs that gold shall be coined by the mint without any charge
whatever, is perhaps the most proper, as it will more effectually
prevent any unnecessary variation of the currency.[48]

CHAPTER XXVI.

ON THE COMPARATIVE VALUE OF GOLD, CORN, AND LABOUR, IN RICH AND IN POOR
COUNTRIES.

"Gold and silver, like all other commodities," says Adam Smith,
"naturally seek the market where the best price is given for them; and
the best price is commonly given for every thing in the country which
can best afford it. Labour, it must be remembered, is the ultimate price
which is paid for every thing; and in countries where labour is equally
well rewarded, the money price of labour will be in proportion to that
of the subsistence of the labourer. But gold and silver will naturally
exchange for a greater quantity of subsistence in a rich than in a poor
country; in a country which abounds with subsistence, than in one which
is but indifferently supplied with it."

But corn is a commodity, as well as gold, silver, and other things; if
all commodities, therefore, have a high exchangeable value in a rich
country, corn must not be excepted; and hence we might correctly say,
that corn exchanged for a great deal of money, because it was dear, and
that money too exchanged for a great deal of corn, because that also was
dear; which is to assert that corn is dear and cheap at the same time.
No point in political economy can be better established, than that a
rich country is prevented from increasing in population, in the same
ratio as a poor country, by the progressive difficulty of providing
food. That di